Defence of the Towers
by sinj
Summary: In his infinite wisdom Dumbledore has reinstated an old competition, the Tower's Cup to prepare Hogwarts against attack. Join all the Houses as they fight each other to defend the castle and win the cup.
1. Introduction

From the elevated height of the Tower you could see for miles.  Gently lolling hills gave way to mountains backed on the orange golden sky.  Clouds resting over the landscape shone with reflected sunlight, adding a touch of red to the scene.  It was a glimpse of perfection, yet there was no-one awake to view it.

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A gentle breeze wafted over a disordered desk by the window, knocking over the inkpot in its path, creating a pool of black that threatened to engulf the already blotched sheaves of white paper that littered the surface.  At the sound a dishevelled head raised itself, caught a second of the glorious view, before jumping frantically around, hands feverishly snatching at papers, books and quills, to save them from being drowned.

"Drat, drat and bother!"

It was as if this was the call that nature had been waiting for to signal the true release of the day.  A chorus of birds began their morning song, seemingly rising as one from the canopy of the forest.  The wind ceased its quiet way and whipped itself to a blustery level, thus startling the greater beasts that, now awakened, caused the once tranquil meadows to brim with a cacophony of noises.

Frizzy hair awry, hands on hips with lips pursed Augusta Sinistra surveyed the disaster that were her previous night's Astronomy notes and let out a pained sigh.  Her face, covered down one side with Dalmatian-like ink blotches, had the lines of middle-age though she was still approaching it.  Although she would be loath to admit it, teaching had definitely aged her before her time.  Yet she could say, and with some pride too, that the majority of those lines were creases of good humour rather than consternation.  

As she bent over to tidy her desk, swallowing a little distastefully at the parched taste, from a night of snoring, in her mouth, she took a moment to smile at the beauty framed in her window.  Albus and Minerva had counselled her on numerous occasions to install glass windows in the tower, if not in the stairwell windows then certainly in those of her private quarters, but she had always refused.  They had chided and gently reprimanded her when she caught one of her frequent colds, but these discomforts she found trifling, for it seemed a shame to try and barricade herself from nature.  And in her opinion, glass had a colour of its own and tended to distort and diminish the hue of colours outside.

Realising that most of the notes were beyond salvation she gave a small shake of the head and consigned them to the bin, handily located beneath the table.  Ruefully she wandered out of the study to the bathroom to make herself somewhat presentable for breakfast, cheering considerably as she remembered that it was Sunday, so she had the day to herself.

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More than ten floors beneath her, piercing black eyes shot open as were their custom at the start of the day.  After a moment they shuttered slowly as the dull ache that was now the norm, made its presence felt somewhere behind his stomach and above the nape of his back.  Catching his breath, he adjusted himself to the now familiar sensation, and swung upright on his bed and exhaled.  A wave of nausea washed over his senses and he unsteadily made his way to his bathroom.  A lesser person might have stumbled back into bed and hidden away from the world, a person with a less pronounced sense of duty and procedure might have ignored the bell that announced the commencement of breakfast and curled back to sleep.  But this was Severus Snape, and that was not his way.  Wearily he made his way from the dungeons to the Great Hall.


	2. A competition at breakfast

Disclaimer:  I forgot this before; please note that I am not the inventor of the characters or even the genre of Harry Potter.  It all belongs to JK Rowling.

Should a muggle see a phoenix they may just notice that although its predominant colouring is that of reds and golds, there is in fact some purple in it.  However, usually when a muggle saw a phoenix they would most likely throw themselves onto the ground cowering in fear, that is, if they hadn't run away at first glimpse of the creature.  Most of those who had actually taken a good look at a phoenix seemed to be fixated on its powerful talons or razor sharp beak, or at least this was what they had gibbered to Ministry officials before being happily obliviated.

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Albus Dumbledore eyes twinkled in the sunlight.  Too often, in his opinion, people focused on supposed dangers and not on the beauty in front of them.  In earlier times it had been easy to soothe them, but now, now the fear was overtaking even the sturdiest of minds.

"Albus, have you paid even the slightest attention to what I've said?"

A tall, portly woman of considerable years paced irritably from her previous position in an old but comfy armchair by the fire to place her weathered face in front of his.  

"Albus!  This is serious we ha' to consider the safety of th' children"

Minerva McGonagall's Scottish brogue had come to the fore highlighting her distress.  She had leant in close to him, their noses barely a hair's width apart.  The concern was etched over her already lined face.

"Come, come now Minerva.  Granted the Astronomy Tower does seem to be the place where most of the children caught out of bounds are found.  But who among us can resist the pull of the stars or even the moon in all her lunar glory?  And naturally, one would not wish to observe such treasures alone which would probably account for the number of times our students are caught in pairs there."

A ghost of a smile graced Minerva's face for a second but was quickly hidden.  Her stance softened somewhat and she moved to regain her seat.  The forgotten teacup that had been placed on the mahogany coffee table near the hearth was taken up and she moved to have a sip, all the time keeping her eyes on Dumbledore to see if he would speak more on the matter.  He relaxed somewhat thinking that she had deferred to his judgement.

At this point it should be made clear that whilst many powers have been attributed to the headmasters of Hogwarts, including mind-reading and purposeful vagueness, none of these, in fact, are true.  Albus Dumbledore's reputation of being able to speak or ask the questions you least wanted voiced had nothing to do with his position as headmaster and everything to do with the wizard that he was.  Of course every master of a skill has a weakness; Dumbledore's was that of underestimating Minerva McGonagall once she got a bee in her bonnet.  And he could be forgiven this weakness because, contrary to the opinion of most students, Minerva McGonagall really wasn't fastidious about many things at all.  In fact, it could be said that there was only one thing that got Minerva McGonagall's knickers in a twist; the safety of her children and she considered all the students of Hogwarts 'hers'.  Before she finally took a taste of her now cold tea she quietly said:

"A castle is only a defence if all its towers stand strong."

She lowered her eyes from his as his forehead knitted into a frown.  Despite her age Minerva was still a good strategist; her words on such a matter could not be taken lightly.  As the school term had grown closer she had fretted over defence plans, more willing than any other professor to impinge on the freedom of the students to keep them safe.  In this she had been overruled by Dumbledore and a majority of the senior staff who felt that it would be too disruptive and upsetting for them.

"We have already impressed on the staff members responsible for the Towers that they need to be secure, to single out Augusta for further comment would be offensive to her not to mention uncomfortable for me.  I do not want to force people into showing their hands before it is time."

He looked at her to see if she understood.  They were both aware that the case of Augusta Sinistra was not straightforward.  She had just begun her teaching career in Hogwarts when the first war with Voldemort began.  Many of her former housemates and friends were open Deatheaters but she was not.  She had stood with Hogwarts when called to do so but had not been part of the Order of the Phoenix and it was known that she maintained contacts with many of her old circle.  As Minerva often mused to herself, Augusta Sinistra was playing her own game within the wider backdrop of the battle.  

In keeping with his belief in all of his long-term staff, Albus Dumbledore gave Sinistra his full trust and support; yet Minerva's voiced worries were not the only ones.  As the Deputy of Slytherin House, Augusta Sinistra had not made many friends within the faculty.  She did not take open interest in the affairs of Hogwarts which unfortunately led to the mistaken view by the majority that she didn't much care for the school.  Added to this was her uncanny ability to take offence to even the most well-intentioned suggestions, seeing them as criticisms not advice.

"The peace is over Albus; it is time."

Minerva's voice broke his train of thought.  He blinked rapidly, readjusting himself to his environment.  A mischievous thought entered his mind and he subtlely schooled his features to be vacant.

"I suppose you are right Minerva.  I know that you will explain the seriousness of the situation to both her and Severus so that they understand the pride of Slytherin House is at stake, what with them having the weakest Tower.  We can tell them at breakfast.  Sherbet Lemon?"

"Er, no.  Pride?  I rather thought…"

What she had been thinking at that moment was drowned out under the sound of the breakfast bell.  And so it was that a rather bemused and apprehensive Professor McGonagall found herself being lead to breakfast by a beaming Headmaster Dumbledore.  

As he strode through the door Albus muttered a short spell to prevent people from leaving the Hall until he was ready.  Standing on the podium he cleared his throat to get the attention of the few students who had made it into the Hall thus far.  Breakfasts at weekends in Hogwarts were generally quite a relaxed affair, the students appeared and left when they wished unlike on other days where they were required to be seated at a certain time.  Twenty-six or so eyes gazed up expectantly at him.

"Just a short announcement; please do not leave the Hall until after I have made another announcement telling you about a new inter-House competition that will be beginning from Monday."

With that he made his way to his place at the table, ignored the curious glances from the rest of the staff and helped himself to seven pieces of toast and a veritable mountain of strawberry jam.  Usually the Hall would be buzzing after such an announcement, today it was quiet, although he knew that this would end once those already present told those who came next.  After about thirty minutes a good hum had started to sound from the rapidly filling benches as more and more pupils began to puzzle over the possibilities of a new competition.

On the staff table, Professor McGonagall had turned a particularly awful shade of puce which some of the more observant, and awake, faculty members spotted.  She began to play with her pancakes, avoiding the raised eyebrows of her colleagues and once again in her mind cursed whichever wizard or witch had thought to make it impossible to disapparate within Hogwarts.  Finally, as the last student took their place with their House, Dumbledore rose from his seat, noting that even his professors were paying him close attention.

"All of you know that this castle was built by its founders to be a haven and a fortress for all those studying within its walls.  Over the years, as the dangers from without have receded the focus has fallen mainly on the idyllic and academic aspect of our founders' aspirations, perhaps to the loss of some of the castle's initial strength.  To this end we have devised a competition to rebuild the physical strength of Hogwarts to its former glory.  I hereby announce the reinstatement of the Towers Cup."

At this murmurs broke out.  Admittedly, these were mostly along the lines of "Wow, that sounds cool, what's the Towers Cup?" or in the case of Quidditch players "Do you think that this'll cut into practice?" although those who had read 'Hogwarts a History" were sitting in stunned silence as they digested this information.  This was mostly the Ravenclaw table and Hermione Granger who looked very alarmed.  Dumbledore raised his hands and the Hall was silent once again.

"Of course we have modified the rules and goals somewhat.  The winning house is no longer the one that causes most horrific injuries to members of the other houses and no boiling oil is to be used in any circumstance.  You may consult with your Heads of Houses over strategy and for passes to the Restricted Section in the library which I do not doubt you will need.  Points will be given for imagination, suitability and effectiveness.  In the absence of a Defence Against the Dark Arts class this year this time shall be used for preparation and experimentation.  I wish you all the best of leprechaun luck!"

This time the Hall erupted with a thousand young voices eagerly discussing the Cup which fortunately masked the combined groans of all the professors.  They knew better than to try and reason with Dumbledore against this but they knew full well that for at least until Halloween they would not be able to distract their charges from this new competition to their schoolwork.

"We shall have a staff meeting at six tonight to discuss the rules fully, before that Severus, Augusta, I believe Minerva will be briefing you as to where Slytherin lies at the moment and I will brief the other Heads of Houses at their earliest convenience."

Two dark heads, one sleek the other a mess, turned their heads as one to look at her and she managed to flash them a weak smile.  The chatter from the student's tables continued unabated whilst Professor McGonagall began to develop a serious migraine as she racked her brain for a way to tell Hogwarts' two prickliest Professors that their tower was currently in last place in the new competition.

"Shall we say coffee at eleven o'clock in your office Minerva?"

She started at the feel of Augusta Sinistra's breath across her shoulder; the hard black eyes of the potions master were also upon her.  Her slight nod of assent was registered by both and a slight swishing sound told her of Sinistra's departure, Snape resumed his breakfast.  Rather unsteadily she pushed herself back from the table and exited the Hall, not feeling the laughing eyes of Albus Dumbledore, who had watched the exchange with gleeful interest, on her back.

As he cast his eyes over the four tables of students before him Albus Dumbledore felt more hopeful than he had felt in a long while.  On each the same image of clustered heads in earnest conversation repeated itself with varying shades of hair colour.  

Yes, he felt very hopeful indeed.

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Author's notes

Thankyou to my one reviewer, Saff, you are a star!

Please let me know that you're reading and review.


	3. Plots and Confrontations

Disclaimer:  Don't own it, no sir!

In the minds of many people, most of whom it should be noted had never entered the place, it was assumed that the Slytherin common room was sumptuous beyond imagination.  The reality, despite the fervent wishes of the occupants, was very different.  True, the armchairs were comfortable, stuffed plush with the finest down of eider ducks, but the material was worn, it's once vibrant designs of gold and silver barely visible from the wear and tear of successive generations of young aspirant lords.  A draught blew through the room and regularly rattled the two grand upright suits of armour from the days of Bartolomeaus the Brilliant.  Adorning the walls were countless priceless tokens from the great wizarding families of old; the wand of Wido the Wise and the Staff of Scientia, one of the few sorceresses of the Middle Ages; whose labels could barely be seen through the grime on the protective gemelus glass that had been installed following a particularly horrendous hexing match which had consigned both the Book of Healing and the Quill of Quisillius to ashes.  It would be fair to say that, if put to an independent poll, of the four common rooms of Hogwarts the Slytherin one was in most need of a facelift.  However, it also would not be disputed that of all the Houses in the school the most ostentatious fireplace was that located in the Serpent's den.  Carved of marble and jade with various ancient fables intertwined in its casing it provided the occupants of the tower hours of conversation over the oft forgotten tales weaved and illuminated in its bindings.

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The pale flickering of the fire danced its reflection off the sleek golden locks atop Draco Malfoy's head.  He sat, perfectly still, in a manner completely unbecoming a sixteen year old boy, face set in concentration.  On the floor at his feet sat his two gargantuan human lapdogs, seemingly entranced by their master's musings.  Around them there was no sound, all others banished as was the wont when a senior bade it in their House.  Silence pervaded and, being a rather oppressed sound in an area of children, made its presence felt.  A crack from the straightening of Draco's back ended its reign as he cleared his throat to speak.

"An extra competition, eh?  Well that works to our advantage, but we need to make full use of it.  Gryffindor will most likely win the Quidditch cup, but all the rest will be up for grabs by the rest of us.  All we really need to do is win this Towers Cup and let natural selection to run its course to win overall."

He looked at Crabbe and Goyle, his faithful followers who gave him the edge in dominating the notoriously nefarious in-fighting of the upper years, and sighed deeply.  Whilst Crabbe and Goyle were demonstrably efficient in dispatching dissenters, they were tediously slow to comprehend the most obvious conclusions.  He had no hope of intellectual support from them; their eyes sadly devoid of even the slightest indication that they had understood his speech.  His shoulders sagged somewhat as he realised that his plan would need to be spelt out step-by-step and possibly drawn on a large board before they understood what was needed of them.

"We need to gain the Towers cup if we are to stand any chance to win this year.  And I want to win, understand?  Not only that, but we have to figure out a way to make Gryffindor lose enough points that they lie below us and at least one other house in the overall points total at the end of the year.  Got it?"

Four rather baleful puppy-dog eyes stared up at him.  Within them burned the fire of adoration and loyalty, yet unfortunately no remote sign of understanding the plan.  Draco began to realise that this would need more planning than he had originally envisaged.  He had been told to practice on his delegating skills this year by his mentor; unfortunately it seemed that his mentor had made the erroneous assumption that there would be sentient beings to delegate to.  Taking this rather disappointing, though not surprising, development on board he rapidly formulated a further plan.

"Crabbe, come with me.  Goyle stay here and await Zabini.  When he arrives, please be sure to direct him to find me at his earliest convenience.  I should be in the Library."

Lazily he rose from the chair and with a bumbling Crabbe in tow left the common room with a regal swish of his school robes.

As the gap in the wall closed behind Crabbe, Goyle rose from his position on the floor and with a swift movement had crossed the room to where a pair of drapes hung from ceiling to ground.  Reaching behind the left one without a second glance, he pulled out Millicent Bulstrode by her hair.

"Well, well, well."  His voice was menacing and ugly, not having fully transitioned between choirboy soprano to its destined hoarse gangster tenor.  "I wonder what would be a good punishment for a very bad, fat, eavesdropper."

Despite being exposed to the somewhat more lyrical Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle had not quite mastered the art of the truly terrifying threat.  It was however something that he was constantly working and practising on.  Before he could carry out any further attempts of verbal intimidation he found himself on the receiving end of a rather powerfully thrown right hook which reduced him to an odd half-standing half-kneeling form.  With a look of utter boredom Blaize Zabini stepped out of the second drape.

"Tsk tsk.  That was disappointing, a botched capture and a turgid tormenting, my commiserations Millicent on being caught out by this buffoon."  

With a flash of the famous trademark Zabini pearly whites he retreated to the main corridor in search of Draco, leaving a somewhat dazzled Millicent Bulstrode and a concussed Gregory Goyle behind.  A full five minutes later and the two began to waken from their Blaize induced stupor.  Without a word they began to methodically check the common room for further intransients.  Their security check complete they settled into the faded green fireside armchairs and began to discuss Draco's ideas.

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Amongst twenty or so people Ginny Weasley moved irritably trying to get near her brother, Harry and Hermione.  Since their arrival back in the Gryffindor common room after breakfast everyone had been talking about the new competition announced by Dumbledore.  Harry, Ron and Hermione had discreetly gone into a huddle in the far corner of the room next to the staircase and seemed to be in the midst of a heated debate with Hermione vigorously shaking her head peppering the movements with occasional loud and emphatic "no's".  Ginny didn't need her considerable experience of observing her older brothers planning mischief to know that Harry and Ron had come up with a scheme to win the cup.  With Hermione's apparent violent dislike to what they were saying it was bound to involve the bending or breaking of rules and Ginny was not in the mood to miss out on any action.  

Crowded though the room was, Ginny's movements towards the Golden trio was not unobserved and it occurred to some of the sharper minds of the room that if they wanted a quick summary of what exactly was required to prevail in the Cup they could ask their resident walking, talking encyclopaedia.  Just as Ginny had finally reached the three a shrill voice that could readily be identified as being owned by Colin Creevey cut across the room.

"So what exactly is this Towers Cup?"

The question that had been forefront in everyone's minds now hung spoken in the air and a multitude of eyes turned towards Hermione Granger.  Conscious of her incorrigible knack of being the first to answer all the questions without waiting for others to attempt to, Hermione paused for a few moments before beginning to share what she knew with her Housemates.

"The Towers Cup was the first non-academic competition between the four houses of Hogwarts.  Its exact date of commencement is not known, but it is believed to have been first held when all four founders were still resident in the school."

Encouraged by her rapt audience she continued.

"When Hogwarts was founded, as I'm sure you are all aware, the wizarding world was under attack from those who saw it as a threat to their power and an evil for mankind.  The castle was constantly under attack, from muggles as well as from wizards and witches who opposed the founders.  Students and Graduates of Hogwarts were particularly vulnerable once they left the school because although they had been give the finest education in the theories of magic they had not had much practical education due to lack of facilities."

Worried that she might be boring people, Hermione paused again to look at her friends.  The expectant gazes prompted her to continue.

"Consequently, Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin devised a competition which involved students designing and aiding with new defences for the living quarters of the castle.  They hoped that by encouraging students to work together and innovate they would be better equipped to deal with the realities outside the walls of Hogwarts and have a greater chance of survival.  

Initially, there were not any rules as to the deadliness of the defences, and at the end of the school year a team would be selected from each house to try and challenge and break the defences of the other towers.  

Each towers defence would be assessed by the Headmaster at the end of each month and provisional rankings would be given so that each House could see where they stood.  Points would be awarded during this time for effective or unusual ideas and their development, but nothing final was decided until the last week of term when a series of pretend attacks would be staged without warning on each tower.

A couple of years into the competition a rule was added that the strongest and weakest houses, as ranked in the penultimate month, would band together as an assault team against the other two houses and vice versa.  This ensured that all the Houses would work together over time and share their knowledge.  

In the first fifty years of the games over one hundred students lost their lives."

An audible gulp was heard from Neville.  His hand gripped tightly onto a shelf for support.

"But Dumbledore said that it wouldn't be deadly."

Neville tore his widened eyes from Hermione to Ginny, who had pointed out this key fact, before switching them back again to Hermione as if asking her to confirm that this was the truth.

"You're right Ginny, but I rather think that what he's planning is that the Heads of Houses charm and ward the defences so that for the purposes of the testing and assault they don't hurt anyone, but that after that they could be used if needed.  I think this is his way for preparing us for war."

The mood in the room turned sombre, some of the younger students looked hopefully at Harry, as if they expected him to begin making Churchill-like war speeches.  They were disappointed; Harry merely hardened his face removing all trace of emotion from it.  Hermione chewed her bottom lip nervously, she had not meant to voice her concerns about Dumbledore's other motives for this competition, especially not in front of Harry, he had far too much on his plate to add this dish of troubles to it.

Luckily before too much time had elapsed Neville stepped in to broach the silence.

"Shouldn't we get to the Library and get all the info that we can on what they made in previous years before everyone else?  At least then we'll know what sort of level of ingeniousness we'll have to match.  Not that I'm worried, but what with Fred and George gone we've got a bit of a hole in our inventiveness arsenal."

"Good idea!"  Hermione thankfully grabbed onto Neville's statement.  "Let's get down there now; if we're quick we'll beat the Ravenclaws to the more obscure copies of Hogwarts history."

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Meanwhile, already in the Library, Crabbe and Draco had various copies of Ancient spells, diaries and Hogwarts History books around them on a wide teak table.  Crabbe had been sucking on his quill so hard in concentration that he had managed to draw up the dark black ink from its nib, developing a stain at the corner of his mouth in the process, making him look like a grotesque clown.  The books open around him were strewn haphazard pushed nearer or further depending on what piece of information happened to catch his eye as he threw his glance across the pages.  With an intervening seat space between them, he sat side by side with Draco.  

The piles of books in front of Draco were neatly stacked into two piles.  Only one was open, which rested to the left above his parchment.  Whereas Crabbe appeared to be reading seventeen books simultaneously Draco was more methodical, scanning the index for entries of interest before viewing those which seemed relevant and making notes. They worked in companiable silence.  An infrequent grunt from Crabbe indicated that he had found something he was unsure of which he passed to Draco for judgement.

Both Draco and Crabbe started as the old doors to the library swung open with a crash.  Madam Pince moved hurriedly over to the entrance to find the cause of the commotion.  She was greeted with a chorus of "Sorry!" from the crowd of Gryffindors that had walked in.  Crabbe made a sweeping movement with his stocky arms and gathered up the books surrounding him, moving to leave the table.  He was stayed by Draco's hand on his arm.  Reluctantly he sat back down and waited for the Gryffindors to spot them.

Set on finding the books that they needed the Gryffindors dispersed into the lines of shelves and began their search in earnest.  It was not long before raised voices could be heard around the central library chamber.

"Where is it?  I know I read the list right, it should be on this shelf."

"How can all four copies have gone??  Are you sure we're in the right section?"

Again Madam Pince found herself having to go and quieten the extremely noisy Gryffindors.  Draco smirked in his seat as he heard the litany of complaints and questions the librarian was being bombarded with.  He stiffened as he heard her tell the students to look on the tables for the missing books.  Nudging Crabbe, they resumed their diligent note-taking apparently ignorant of the fluster occurring around them.

It was simple to deduce that they had been spotted.  The atmosphere in the library changed suddenly from that of scholarly serenity to something colder and decidedly less friendly.  The tiny milk-white hairs on the back of his neck began to raise themselves, a sign of the impending confrontation.  The murmuring of the Gryffindor group ceased as they realised that the two Slytherins had what they were looking for.

Madam Pince looked between the two groups and mentally began to play out various worst-case scenarios and methods of ensuring the safety of her books.  Being a believer in letting house feuds run their course she retreated from the scene keeping a beady eye on the more valuable texts.

"Give us those books Malfoy."

Short, to the point and said none too nicely, Ron Weasley strode to stand threateningly behind Draco Malfoy who chose to ignore him.  Seeing that this was hardly going to achieve the result they wanted, his sister tried a different tack.

"Vincent, would you mind if I looked at some of the books you're not using at the moment?"

So saying and ignoring the sharp hiss from Harry and her other Housemates, Ginny sat herself in the space between Draco and Crabbe, surprising those two as well as herself with her move.  Thrown off-balance Crabbe panicked and made a wild attempt to flee contact with her, upsetting the seats, unintentionally causing Ginny to fall to the floor.  Before Draco could even launch into a nasty comment he found himself dodging a hex which, having missed its intended target, proceeded to imbed itself into the table causing several splinters to fly out.

Precisely at this moment Blaize Zabini and Pansy Parkinson ambled into the library.  Everybody froze for an instant before Crabbe launched himself bodily at Ron knocking him onto the floor next to his sister.  All hell broke loose; curses of every description from the inane tickling curse to the considerably more painful heaving hex flew in all directions ricocheting off shelves, lamps and the walls.

Realising that her library was in danger of being reduced to rubble Madam Pince speedily exited the scene in search of help, having first muttered a number of protective spells over the shelves.

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Some way away Minerva McGonagall paced a small circuit in her office practising her lines under her breath.

"I believe they say in the Muggle world that talking to oneself is the first sign of madness."

The smooth voice of Severus Snape made her jump.  She brought her hand to her chest to show the shock that he had given her and waved him in from the door indicating a chair by her desk.  Severus raised an eyebrow.  She responded in kind with a sarcastic smile.  Their eyes drifted to the antique time-teller on her mantelpiece as its slender arms moved to indicate the meeting hour.  Just as she was about to purse her lips in disapproval of the witch's tardiness, Augusta materialised in the doorway.  Nodding to Severus she seated herself in the other vacant chair by the desk and calmly waited for Minerva to proceed noting the uncharacteristic nervousness of the older woman.

"Right… well…  I'm sure that you are interested as to what position Slytherin is currently lying in for the Towers Cup."

Minerva paused, looking for some reaction from her blank faced colleagues, she was disappointed.  Taking a deep breath she rapidly continued.

"It has been judged that at present Slytherin Tower is the weakest."

Minerva had been expecting fireworks at this and she braced herself for the explosion she was sure was coming.  To her amazement neither of the two reacted.  They rose as one and courteously left her office but not before she had caught a glimpse of white-hot barely suppressed fury in their eyes.  If Minerva had been a wreck before telling them the news, she was now close to hysterical.  She knew first-hand that both Severus and Augusta were not to be crossed when it came to Slytherin pride.

The next couple of months would be murder. 

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Author's notes:

I'm not sure if Blaize is a boy or a girl in HP world, I remember reading a fic where (s)he was a girl but for my purposes he's a boy.  This chapter was a bit slow on happenings, but never fear the pace shall most definitely pick up next chapter, various vendettas are to be played out (cackles evilly and twirls around on her author's chair).

Reviews as ever, are very, very, very welcome (do I come across as needy?)  Please click on the little button below, it likes to clicked, really, it's often told me so!


	4. Casualties and Remedies

Disclaimer:  I do not own, nor claim to own the wonderful world of Harry Potter or its characters.  I just mess around a little.

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In a normal school, one would expect that there would not be much to do for a nurse.  Perhaps the odd bruise here or a scrape there.  It would probably be once every decade that a really serious injury had to be treated.  

By the very fact that Hogwarts was an academy for witches and wizards, it could be said that it was not a normal school.  However, one look at the treatment log in the infirmary would be all that were needed, if more were, to confirm that Hogwarts was most definitely not an ordinary teaching establishment.  In the last five years the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, had dealt with more serious injuries than a doctor in a front-line hospital would in his entire military-lifetime.

Hands on hips, lips pursed disapprovingly, Madam Pomfrey surveyed the scene before her and pondered who was most in need of her aid.  Eight rather dishevelled students either stood or lay before her.  The normally angelic looking Draco Malfoy kept sneezing maggots everywhere, Harry Potter was covered in rather ugly, explosive looking boils, Ronald Weasley was lying snoring loudly on the floor, Vincent Crabbe appeared to be trying to ingest his hand whilst both Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger were seemingly stuck in an unstoppable fit of the giggles all the while shooting each other death glares.  Compared to them, Ginny Weasley and Blaise Zabini at first glance looked unscathed, a closer look revealed that Ginny now sported a lion's mane around her neck and Blaise had porcupine quills sprouting from his back.

As her floor was covered with another wave of maggots it was clear that young Mr Malfoy's problem was the most urgent.  Shaking her head she muttered a couple of words under her breath as she tapped him on the head.  A brief look of relief made its appearance on Draco's face before a grimace surfaced.  Without a word she passed him a handkerchief.  He took it and blew, his face contorting in distaste as he saw the remains of squished maggots.

"You'll be blowing those out for the next two days I'm afraid.  There's no quick solution.  Now be off with you!"

Turning back to the remaining students, Madam Pomfrey motioned for the two hysterical girls to follow her.  Dutifully and rather gingerly the girls trailed into her store cupboard to be faced with the sight of the Nurse wielding an impossibly large spoon filled with a green liquid reminiscent of snot.  

"So, which one of you is up first then?"

Barely acknowledging the other's presence Pansy stepped forward.  Taking a deep breath she gulped the vile looking medicine and immediately tried to spit it out.  Not about to see good medicine go to waste, Madame Pomfrey intervened, clamping Pansy's mouth shut and bellowing "Swallow, SWALLOW!" at the same time.

Hermione's eyes had widened to the size of saucers and she began to back away from the other two.  However, the nurse had sensed her patient's thoughts of fleeing and whirled herself round quickly and bore down on the alarmed bookworm.  

"Now you Miss Granger.  You'll swallow this if you don't want your sides to split from trying to stop those giggles."

Hermione's only response was a rather frightened giggle combined with a ferocious shake of the head as she manoeuvred herself towards the door.  Her ease of mind was not helped by the sight of an extremely pale looking Pansy desperately trying to scrape the flavour from her tongue.  Her moment's slip of attention from Madam Pomfrey to Pansy was all the nurse had needed to refill the spoon and come within an inch of her.  Backing away and still shaking her head furiously in the midst of giggling Hermione made a dive for the door only to find herself pulled back by an invisible force.  Dropping her shoulders in defeat and attempting to sigh between her giggles, Hermione opened her mouth and swallowed.

"Oh god, what _is_ that???  That is the foulest thing…" Hermione trailed off at the sight of Madam Pomfrey's narrow stare.

"Er… thankyou?"

With a loud "Humph!" Madam Pomfrey swept passed the girls and back out into the infirmary where a loud commotion had begun.  

She was greeted with the sight of Blaise Zabini glowering thunderously behind the back of Professor Snape who had situated himself between that angry young man and an equally livid Ginny Weasley, who had Professor McGonagall at her side.  Before she had a chance to explain the situation to the two House Heads both Ginny and Blaise began speaking at the same time, each getting progressively louder as they tried to drown the other out.  Minerva McGonagall looked impassive, but to the nurse's experienced eyes she could see that the old woman was having trouble suppressing laughter at the behaviour of the two students.  

Stuck in between Severus Snape was again wishing that someone would do him in, for in these instances death would be a welcome intervention to Ginny's banshee screech-like tones in one ear and Blaise's hollering in the other.  Snape's eye barely perceptively twitched, in his mind he was running through his ingredients order list to prevent himself from permanently rendering the two mute.

Casting her eye over the remaining casualties Madame Pomfrey debated in her mind who was next to be tended to.  Her question answered itself as a boil exploded on Harry's face causing him to yelp in a mixture of pain and surprise.  Some of the pus had flown quite a distance and both Ginny and Professor McGonagall were hurriedly wiping it from the sleeves of their tops.  

"Mr Potter follow me please," so saying she led him behind a starched white canvas screen and began to apply a foul smelling ointment to his boils.  From around the screen the raised voices of the two remaining students who were able to speak could be heard.

"This is all your fault!"

"Mine?  Talk about the pot calling the cauldron black!  Just remember who started this all!"

"Started??!  If Malfoy hadn't been an annoying little idiot and shared like everyone else none of this would have happened!"

"Oh, really?  I suppose that justifies over five of you attacking two people who were just sat in the library studying.  If we hadn't arrived and evened things up who knows what you would've done."

"Attacked?  All I did was sit down and Vincent managed to throw himself off his chair in his rush to get away!"  

On saying this Ginny turned her eyes accusingly to Crabbe who was still locked in a battle to avoid stuffing his own hand down his incredibly large mouth.  Engaged as he was in a futile struggle between his left and right arms, Vincent could do nothing to respond and threw a helpless silent plea for assistance to his Head of House and housemate.  Before Blaise could rise to his defence; Snape spoke, obviously tired from being yelled at in two directions.

"Enough!  It's clear that a fight was started that has resulted in numerous students being hexed in various manners.  I highly doubt that we shall determine the real culprits for its initiation.  Therefore, everyone involved will report for detention with me at the end of each day next week."

With that he gave a courteous nod to McGonagall and made his exit from the infirmary.  Professor McGonagall, lips set in a thin line, turned to a mutinous looking Ginny.

"Miss Weasley, please inform the rest of your housemates involved in this incident that I will speak to you all individually regarding this matter.  I need not add that I am highly unimpressed and disappointed with you all."

So saying the stern Head of Gryffindor also swept out of the infirmary leaving Madam Pomfrey to nurse the rest of her, somewhat more subdued, patients in peace.

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As she walked down the long corridor from the infirmary Minerva McGonagall heard soft chuckling coming from one of the many rooms on the right-side of the passage.  She opened the door and peeked inside.  What she saw would not have been believed by anyone.  Severus Snape, feared Potions Master of Hogwarts, onetime Deatheater and the scourge of students everywhere, was sat on a window ledge, laughing.  He looked up as she entered.

"A lion's mane!  You know the way she was carrying on in there it really suited her."

The corners of Minerva's mouth twitched but she attempted to keep her expression serious.

"Really Severus, it's not nice to laugh at another's misfortune."

"Who would ever say I was nice?"  He adjusted himself on the ledge so that there was room for her to sit.  Minerva gave him one of her trademark baleful looks, then gave up the pretence and laughed heartily.

"The porcupine quills were a good touch, although perhaps peacock feathers would've been more appropriate?"

"Why Professor McGonagall are you insinuating that Mr Zabini is a mite vain?  I'm shocked that a professor of your stature would imply such a thing!"

With that they both launched into peals of laughter that lasted a good ten minutes.

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Author's notes:

This really is half a chapter, but owing to my baby 'puter getting a little bug it's all I've had a chance to churn out and I didn't want to leave it too long to update.  As ever, please review if you've read.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.


	5. Hubble, Bubble

Disclaimer: I do not own the world of Harry Potter, much though I wish I did.

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It had long been tradition in Hogwarts that Gryffindors and Slytherins shared innumerable classes together.  Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, basically any subject which involved a slight risk to life, the Lions and Snakes were thrust together in the Headmaster's infinite wisdom.  This scheduling had prevailed despite numerous pleas from Heads of Houses, former pupils and even the Ministry.  In point of fact it seemed that Headmasters of Hogwarts had a running pact not to disturb this arrangement, much to the befuzzlement of the wider wizarding community.  And so it was with great pleasure, which some might have said was misplaced, Albus Dumbledore, greatest wizard of his generation, waited for the incident report, which was bound to occur, from the first Potions class of the year.  Red and Gold versus Green and Gold, the unerring battle of the school.

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At his desk Severus Snape sat, straight-backed, erect, unmoving.  His eye twitched, then twitched again in irritation.  For a man who had witnessed countless horrors, survived prolonged torture and operated in the shadows it was perhaps surprising that the thought of a two-hour period with Gryffindors and Slytherins could fill him with dread.  Worse than this, in his mind at least, was the fact that despite his extraordinary skills of manipulation he had yet to complete a Potions lesson with them without the interruption of some major incident or another.  

The final grains of sand in the hourglass by the door ran through to the bottom.  As it magically turned itself over; the heavy wrought iron door was pushed open and the sounds from the passageway flooded in, engulfing the room's serenity.   The tussled and tangled hair of Hermione Granger made its entrance, as per usual, the first student in the classroom.   Behind her, falling silent as they entered, were the rest of her classmates.  

Severus counted the heads frowning, only half the class appeared to be present, and in his opinion it was by far the worse half.  It was unusual for the Slytherins to be tardy, especially for his lesson.  While he pondered what could have delayed all of his little serpents, the students present began to fidget and whisper amongst themselves.  Throwing them a murderous glare he stormed to the open door and slammed it shut.  Resuming his seated position behind his desk he started his lecture as if nothing was amiss.  

Any faint hopes that he might have had that the Gryffindors would be wise, for once, and not question him about the whereabouts of the rest of his class were dashed as he saw a rather nervous Hermione Granger, obviously under the urgings of her compatriots, raise her hand.  Counting slowly to one hundred mentally, the Potions master motioned for her to speak.

"Professor Snape, sir, where are the others?"

It was, he reflected, a valid question.  If he had been in a class where half of his classmates were not present, he too would have wondered where they were.  However, being a Slytherin he would not have given voice to his curiosity, but instead would have made enquiries of his own, privately.  And he most certainly would not have interrupted a Professor mid-flow.  So it was with a clear conscience and quite possibly a malicious glee that he answered.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for interrupting with no good cause."

Barely muted agonised sighs greeted this and he could see that a number of Gryffindors opening their mouths in readiness to challenge him, so he continued silkily,

"To prevent further loss of points from your House let me say that not being blind, I have noted that a large number of pupils are not present.  Suffice to say that this will be investigated later. Right now you are in my dungeon in my lesson and as usual I expect nothing less than your undivided attention."

Looking around the room with one of his severest stares and seeing that the mini-rebellion had been quelled for the time being, he resumed his monologue on the properties of the mandrake root.  He scanned his mind for mid-level potions for the semi-full class to prepare, not wanting to disadvantage the missing students.  At least he mused, there would be less danger of injury in this lesson.

Twenty minutes later and Severus Snape allowed himself to relax, nothing untoward had happened and so he felt that he could fully concentrate on his students rather than being prepared for some beastly event to make an appearance.  It was unfortunately, a minute too soon.

Over the sound of the gentle hum of merrily boiling cauldrons, a gigantic loud crash ripped through the air.  Snape turned from where he had been overseeing Lavender Brown adding Fisnoog into her potion to observe the back of the class.  Harry Potter was staring horrified at the youngest male of the Weasley clan.  Ronald Weasley for his part was doing a very good impression of a fish stranded on dry land.  Eyes bulging so wide it was a miracle that they hadn't popped out of their sockets.  His mouth was opening and closing, no sound being emitted for once.  

As Snape's eyes travelled over the boy he realised why.  In a flash he had moved himself to the child's side and began to pull off the boiling clothes that by now were sticking to Ron's skin.  Muttering a numbing spell to try and ease the pain for the red-head, he succeeded in removing the rest of the uniform, tearing some of the flesh in his haste.  Scooping up Ron into his arms; Snape cast the Hermeus spell over his feet and after shouting instructions on reading to the shocked class, dashed quickly through the school to the infirmary.  

Madame Pomfrey briskly scanned the injured boy, searching for other injuries.  She blocked out Ron's voice which was insisting that he was fine, numbed as he still was to the scalding, unable to sit up and see the true extent of the damage, as he was being held down by a stonily silent Severus.  She nodded curtly at Snape then shooed him out of the infirmary and set about healing the burns and repairing the skin damage.

Once out of the infirmary Snape made his way back to his dungeon.  He did not hurry, he knew the Gryffindors well enough to know that with one of their own hurt they would be rather subdued.  Thus he was surprised, on reaching the top of the winding staircase that led to the laboratories, to hear raised voices from his classroom.  Severus rapidly descended the stairs and quietly opened the door to peer inside.  What he saw almost made him snort with laughter.  What he heard brought a smile to his lips.

"You must've done something!"

"Hermione I swear.  I did exactly what you said.  I leaned over and turned down the heat.  That's it!"

"Well… then you must've added the wrong ingredient.  Are you sure you had Fisnoog?  It does rather look like Cowslip."

"I definitely added all the right ingredients.  Snape was stood watching me the whole time.  He'd have docked points if I'd got the wrong stuff.  What if I stay like this forever???"  

Lavender wailed and clasped her face in her hands dramatically.  Her friends shared uneasy glances between themselves.  As usual Hermione was the first to speak up.

"Don't be silly!  Even if we can't figure out what to do to make it better, I'm sure Professor Snape will know what to do."

At this Lavender let out a howl of humiliation, causing Hermione to take a couple of steps back in alarm.  Huffing at her crossly, Parvati Patil elbowed past her to put her arms around Lavender.

"Don't listen to Hermione Lavender!  We'll think of something before Professor Snape gets back.  It's alright.  It'll be ok, we'll sort it before the old bat even gets near the dungeons.  Uncover your face and let me have a look."

So saying, and with much sniffling from Lavender, Parvati pulled Lavender's face free from her hands and gulped.  It was bright orange.  Not a shade that could even remotely be passed off as natural, it was, putting it bluntly, the hue of one of those ridiculously bright coloured pencil crayons that little children the age of five always seemed to have.  And it most certainly did not suit Lavender's soft brown hair.

Parvati looked back at the rest of the class and raised her eyebrows gesturing for support and ideas.  Seamus and Dean shrugged their shoulders whilst Hermione and Harry curled their faces in defeat.  At Parvati's death look they all rapidly switched their expressions to that of studied thought.  With another firm look at them, Parvati turned to Lavender.

"Look, you start doing the reading and making notes for the rest of us, while we start looking for a cure for your face."

For the third time that day Snape found himself to be surprised.  He had never, in his assessments of the Gryffindors, seen Parvati Patil as a leader, and without doubt would not have predicted that she would maintain a level head in a crisis.  Concealing himself with an ancient cloak charm he stepped into the room, pushing the door shut with only the faintest creak, unnoticed by all within who were too busy concentrating on the task in front of them.

After only a few minutes Dean Thomas jumped from his seat, shouting excitedly.  He raised his wand causing Severus to close his eyes in anticipation.  

There was an awful silence.  The Potions master cautiously peeked out from under his eyelids.    Dean was frozen in place, wand-arm still extended with an impressive arch.  All colour was drained from his face, in fact all the colour was drained from pretty much everything he wore.  His school robes were now a faint grey, the only hint of colour remaining on his person was a sad pale pink that lingered on his tie, a poor reminder of the bright red that was once there.  Worst of all, his hair, which normally was dark was shocking peroxide white.  Severus stifled a groan.

Lavender slowly took in Dean's new look.

"I'm guessing that that didn't work?  Dean stop posing, it's not funny!  Now we have to find a counter-curse for you as well. "

"I'm not posing!  I'm stuck!!!  That was a really powerful wash and dry spell combined.  I didn't bother with the starch bit so I'm all stiff."

"You idiot," chimed in Seamus, "Everyone knows that you have to starch when you wash!" 

Enough was enough, Snape deciding that Madame Pomfrey would not forgive him for any more than two further casualties, moved over to the doorway and became visible, again without alerting the students to his presence.  Thus he had the satisfaction of startling at least five pupils and seeing Neville Longbottom slip onto the floor on hearing his feared Professor's voice boom across the workbenches.

"What is the meaning of this? Fifty points from Gryffindor for failing to follow simple instructions!  Mr Thomas, would you care to explain how you came to be in your present predicament?"

"Well, um, you see…"

Snape cut him off brusquely with a wave of his hand.

"From your stance it appears that you have been engaging in what, you will remember, I like to refer to as careless wand waving.  Ten points from Gryffindor for ignoring a Professor's instructions and a further ten points for your stupidity in failing to realise that the starch charm was a vital component of the miracle cleaning spell."

Seeing their eyes widen, Snape smirked inwardly at the gullibility of children and their willingness to ascribe powers of omnipresence to their teachers.

"Miss Brown, it seems that you too have managed to inflict harm on yourself.  Another ten points from Gryffindor for inattention to detail, your malady is due to an erroneous ingredient in your brew causing the fumes to change into a highly powerful dye-agent.  Both you and Mr Thomas are excused from the remainder of this lesson and should go to the infirmary to seek Madame Pomfrey's assistance."

With those two dismissed, Snape attempted to impart some knowledge to the students left behind in the little time before the end of the lesson.

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Author's Notes:

This took a while, hope you guys think it's worth the wait.

I have another reviewer – yeah!!!  does happy Duracell puppy-dog back flip


	6. Goyle and Trouble

Disclaimer:  I had nothing to do with the creative process that resulted in the wonderful world of Harry Potter, thus I do not claim ownership of it.

Goyle and Trouble….

The chameleon is one of nature's fascinating creatures.  Widely known in the muggle world for its colour-changing abilities; it has been marvelled at through the ages.  In the wizarding world too, it has provoked hundreds of studies and papers chronicling its many magical qualities.  Whilst poor bio-physicists and bio-chemists struggled with the enigma behind the animal's colour shifting, the wizarding world forged ahead with its research into practical uses of these properties being more accepting of the true explanation for the chameleon's powers.  Somewhere along the line in this field of academia, it became quite common for chameleons to be adopted as pets in wizarding families.  So it was that Norbert, of a great and long line of famed chameleons, came to be at Hogwarts, as the pet of Vincent Crabbe.

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Norbert blinked slowly.  Having a brain the size of a pea seriously limited his ability to ponder at length on life's mysteries.  Usually they just passed him by; but today he felt somewhat unsettled.  He had been looking at his human who, being the size of a lesser planet, tended to occupy most of Norbert's field of vision when in the room; when suddenly he had vanished!  Not left the room gone, but disappeared right in front of the chameleon's eyes.  Cautiously Norbert moved his gaze from where Vincent had been and scanned around, shifting his feet in readiness for any escape manoeuvres he might have need to make.  The boy's dormitory was much as usual, that is to say, a complete mess.  Rather alarmingly his small brain was now also telling him that whilst the boy was nowhere to be seen, he could definitely be heard.  Tensing slightly Norbert felt a sense of déjà vu wash over him, recalling an incident with Vincent's older brother when he had unwittingly been on the receiving end of one of Mr Crabbe senior's camouflage spells.  Having reached a satisfactory explanation of the situation Norbert resumed his previous action of falling asleep and hardly stirred when the door slammed as the most junior member of the Crabbe family hurried down to join his housemates.

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Draco followed Zabini out of the common room, checking to see who was behind him before sneering, "Hair out of pla…" he trailed off as he realised that Blaise was no longer there in front of him.

On hearing Malfoy's cold tones Blaise turned to say something cutting back to Malfoy, but his witty retort dissipated from his mind as he realised that noone was there behind him.

"Zabini?" 

"Malfoy?" 

"Who's there?"

Both Draco and Blaise jumped as a third frightened voice chimed in after theirs.  Their hearts started to race and, unwittingly in unison, they moved to push their backs up against the wall, figuring that the least they could do was to make sure that no-one was behind them.  Unfortunately, given their proximity to each other, they crashed together, causing their hearts to speed up further.  Both reached for their wands and uttered silent curses as they realised that due to Snape's dislike of 'silly wand-waving they had left them in their rooms.  

This presented the two boys with an inner quandary: should they shout and summon help which lay only a few yards away in their common room, but would reveal weakness in front of their peers, or should they struggle in silence against an unseen foe who might well kill them.  The inner struggle was short-lived as the voice of self-preservation and the hammering of their hearts drowned out all other arguments in their mind.  As one they commenced yelling at the top of their lungs.

Gregory Goyle was almost knocked over by the force of sound that suddenly began echoing around the corridor.  It sounded like the wailing of banshees, high-pitched, completely garbled and unintelligible.  He slowly backed away from the area from where it appeared to originate, murmured a password, and attempted to quietly disappear into the Slytherin common room.  Except that he backed straight into a solid wall.**  He repeated the password, louder this time but still not much above the level of a whisper.  Again the wall did not yield.  Up to this point Goyle had kept his eyes looking forwards making sure that he would see any movement from whatever creature was there, now he chanced a glance over his shoulder.****  The stone appeared as it should be, the entrance remained concealed, he knew he was in the right place as he could see the three cracks that were used to discreetly mark the hidden door.  Gregory scanned the corridor in front of him trying to pinpoint the exact source of the sound, it seemed to be moving into the centre of the corridor, obviously trying to block his other route of escape.  He tried to rapidly think of a plan.  Pushing aside a tiny voice in his head which rudely pointed out that thinking fast was not one of his strong points he focused on what he could do to get out of this situation.**

Whilst Goyle was engaging in the relatively novel task of thinking of his very own strategy, Zabini and Malfoy had fallen to the ground, scuffling all the time and had managed to roll away from the wall into the middle of the corridor, still shouting blue murder as they went.  It was just as Malfoy felt his nose being twisted that he reached the startling conclusion that the other screaming voice sounded extremely familiar.  In fact the more he thought about it the more he came to the worrying realisation that he was on the floor wrestling with Blaise.  His nose was released abruptly and Draco scrambled as far away as possible up the corridor, rightly deducing that Blaise was preparing to throw himself against his opponent.  He was proved right when he heard Blaise give a ridiculous screeching battle cry followed by a dull thud as Zabini launched himself physically at his assailant only to be met with the admirably hard stone floor, knocking him out instantly.

"Zabini?"  Draco cautiously edged closer to where he had heard the thud.  "Zabini, I know it's you."  He waited for a response.  After a few seconds he spoke again, though more loudly this time.   "Zabini, answer me!  Where are you?"  As an afterthought he added, "Are you alright?"  

A different voice to the one he had been expecting answered him.

"Draco?  It's me, Goyle.  Is that you?  Be careful!  There's some sort of banshee about."  Gregory Goyle's voice floated down the corridor.

Draco sat up on his haunches, unsuccessful in his attempt to locate Zabini.  He tried to pinpoint the direction from which Goyle's voice had come from.  Futilely peering back towards the portrait entrance he scanned the walls for any discrepancy that might give him a clue to his friend's whereabouts.  Giving up, exasperated he called out,

"Goyle, in case you hadn't realised, we're all invisible.  Where are you, and what's all this about a banshee?"

"I'm by the common room entrance.  I can't get in.  I heard terribly awful screeches further down the corridor.  Can you see anything?  Is Blaise with you?"

Now, it is not without reason that the House of Slytherin are renowned for their subterfuge, slight of hand and annoying ability to turn bad situations to their advantage.  Draco already was shaping up to be yet another showcase of these characteristics.  Seeing an opportunity to gain more kudos and rise in the esteem of his housemates he began to formulate an elaborate tale in his mind with himself as the hero.  He had the bare skeleton of the plot outlined in his head when his train of thought was interrupted by Goyle calling out his name frantically.

"Calm down Greggo, I'm still here.  Blaise is with me but he's unconscious.  I've scared away the monster, so you don't need to worry about that any more."  Draco felt no remorse for his little white lie, after all three-quarters of what he had said had been the truth.  As his father and his mentor had often advised him, start with the truth and make minor embellishments, then sit back and let others do the rest.  It was excellent advice.

"You mean you fought that monster and won?  What happened?  Did it attack you and Blaise?  What spells did you use?"

Unseen to Goyle, Draco smirked to himself.  This was going better than he could have ever hoped.  

"Well, I would've hit it with an unforgivable, but I didn't have my wand with me, plus it was attacking Zabini and it was invisible.  I had to fight it with my bare hands."

In a far off distance Blaise could hear voices.  They had a thick syrupy dream-like quality, rather like someone talking through a heavy velvet scarf.  All in all it was strangely comforting; a nice way to wake up.  He relaxed and tried to hear more clearly what they were saying.  As he focused, the voices grew louder and morphed from soothing tones to the sickening sound of Malfoy.

Blaise groaned and groggily tried to sit up.  He remembered fighting furiously with some invisible thing and then hurling himself toward where it had been in an attempt to knock it out.  With hindsight, it had not been the best of moves.  Throwing oneself at sparring opponents could hardly be called the most sensible action to take in normal times, when the creature was invisible it was downright suicidal and, he could attest, extremely painful.  He leaned back against the smooth cold wall of the passage breathing in deeply to calm himself and looked around for Malfoy and Goyle who he was sure would be enjoying his present state of distress.  Blinking hard he stared around him trying to see them.  Before he could shout at them for being childish and tell them to stop hiding from him, Malfoy spoke.

"Zabini, you ok?  We're all invisible at the moment.  Well at least you, me and Goyle are.  We're not sure about the rest; apparently we can't get back into the common room. . .  Hey Zabini, did you hear me?  Where are you?"

Having only recently returned to the world of the conscious, Blaise was not processing information at his usual sharp pace.  It took him a couple of seconds to register that they were undetectable, so he continued to gaze intensely in the direction where Malfoy's voice was emanating.  As the penny began to drop, he analysed his encounter with the creature in the corridor.  From his little wrestling match he could tell that it wasn't much different to him in size and weight, and from the pulls and pushes he had received whilst struggling with it he concluded that it must have arms and hands.  In fact the more he thought about it the more he was beginning to wonder whether it was a monster.  It was then that Blaise's light bulb reignited and the veil of mystery over his foe fell.

"Did the monster hurt you Blaise?"

Goyle's voice cut across his unpleasant realisation.  Shaking an unseen fist at the gods who were mocking him, Blaise found himself in the disheartening position of having to play to Malfoy's tall tale in order to prevent himself from appearing like an idiot.  To try and distract himself from the nasty thought of having boosted Malfoy's kudos his brain commenced thinking of any advantages that could possibly arise from their predicament.

"I'm okay.  I was just thinking…" he was rudely interrupted by a loud snort from Malfoy.  "Shut up Malfoy, hear me out.  We can use this.  If no-one can see us and we're careful, we can mess around with the Gryffindors in Potions, Snape'll be only too happy to deduct points at the slightest excuse."

"You're such a simple creature Zabini.  Never look beyond your own nose do you? For all we know the whole school could be invisible.  Fat lot of good it'd be for us to go gallivanting around if we couldn't see anyone!"

"Simplicity often works best, Malfoy.  You on the other hand lack imagination.  Maybe the whole school has been affected, maybe not.  If it has, all we'd say is that we were going to see our Head of House to inform him of the situation in his tower.  No harm no foul."

There was a pause as Draco considered this,

"It's still too risky.  We don't know how or why this spell was cast.  It could wear off at any minute.  I can't really see us being able to explain why we sat invisibly for half of Snape's lesson.  Can you?"

"Draco, Draco, Draco.  It's perfectly straightforward.  We didn't realise until now that we were invisible.  It's perfectly plausible that we wouldn't realise it in Potions.  Snape never asks us any questions, the goodie-goodie Gryffindors never talk to us.  Why would we be aware that they couldn't see us?  Come on Malfoy, show a bit of spunk for once!"

It was a not-so subtle hit at Draco's most self-conscious part of his psyche.  He could not stand, in fact really hated, to be viewed as cowardly.

"Alright, I'll do it, but let it be known Zabini, if this blows up in our faces you'll owe me big time."

"Yeah, right.  Whatever.  Goyle, you stay here and try and get back into the common room or at least get a message to them.  We need to get everyone in there to swear that we were there too, just in case someone gets suspicious."

With that Blaise and Draco left Goyle with the puzzle of how to get back into the Serpent's Den.

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Meanwhile, barely ten metres away in the Slytherin common room, Rose Parkinson knew that she was in deep trouble.  All she had been trying to do was cast a concealment charm on the small walnut table that stood near the exit of the common room.  The next thing that had happened was that everyone, and this was no first-year storytelling exaggeration, literally everyone around her had disappeared.  

You might have thought that at this point Rose would be feeling extremely embarrassed about it all, but really the only thought that was going through her head was that that her sister was going to have a field day bringing this incident up forever more at the slightest excuse**.  **Thankfully she hadn't tried to impress anyone about her idea for a defence of their tower, so no-one had been watching when she cast it.  If she could have thought of a way to recant it in those first few seconds, she might just have gotten away with it.  Unfortunately, in her rush to try out her idea she hadn't actually thought of the counter-charm and as the seconds turned into minutes, she became more flustered realising that she wasn't going to have that sudden flash of inspiration that usually got her out of trouble.  And boy was she in trouble.****

Happily, though not so from the perspective of Marmaduke DeVries, Rose wasn't the only one who was having difficulty reversing a spell they'd cast.  Even worse in his case was that he'd committed the classic new boy folly of bravado and had demonstrated his ideas in front of his peers without so much as a trial run in private.  Thus it was that Marmaduke was speedily realising that at times you can be too successful in your endeavour.  Even more rapidly Marmaduke was coming to the conclusion that testing a locking spell just as your entire house is about to leave for the first lesson of the day was not the brightest of plans.  

It was a shame really.  The spell had worked brilliantly, better than Marmaduke had envisaged.  Not only was there a barrier securing against entry from the outside, but everything was blocked: sounds, smells, even non-substantiate entities.  What he hadn't foreseen was that the door would be completely sealed the other way, such that no-one could now leave and no-one on the exterior could hear them call for help.  

He knew from his elder brothers tales that the key to survival in Slytherin was never to show your full hand, and above all else to maintain a good image amongst your housemates.  Yet again he found himself wishing that he'd heeded their counsel.  This mishap would not be soon forgotten and would probably earn him the label of idiot buffoon or something equally undesirable.  Stomach churning, he turned to face what he knew would be the contemptuous looks of the other boys.  

He waved his hands in front of his eyes to check that they were functioning.  The room appeared to be empty which he knew to be impossible.  He realised that in his panic he had totally blocked out the hustle and bustle coming from behind him as he had worked feverishly to unlock the door.  As the sounds flooded back in, his senses short-circuited on the anomalous input of his ears hearing about thirty raised voices whilst his eyes couldn't see another living soul.  

This was definitely not good.

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A/N:  Well, this took a while, still not completely happy with it.  Whaddya think?  Promise that the next bit will be posted rather rapidly.  Think that I might limit my chapter length a bit and try and post more frequently.  As ever, please review.


	7. Knock Knock

Disclaimer:  I do not own Harry Potter, it belongs to some lady called J K Rowling

It is a common misperception that Vampires are melodramatic creatures with a tendency to go in for hamming it up at the slightest opportunity.  This view, highly erroneous though it is, has persisted despite the best efforts of the Vampiric community to reclaim their image and portray themselves closer to their true characteristics of sharp dressing and classic understatement.  However the shocking outrageousness of Vam Glam, an ill-thought re-branding stunt at the Vampire Community's annual fashion show, put paid to any idea of cleansing the wider public of their prejudices.  Well, at least for a generation.  You may wonder why I bring up this interesting yet seemingly irrelevant sociological titbit and the reason is summed up in two words, well a person really, Severus Snape.  In his life, Severus Snape had been used to hearing cruel words, to a large extent he thought himself immune to them.  Sometimes, when he felt that a nickname actually caught an aspect of his persona, he was even moved to humour.  So it was that he was actually quite fond of his students who saw him as a Vampire or bat.  Ironic that they misused the label but had actually hit upon the creature he would probably agree he shared many real characteristics with.

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As Snape exited his dungeons he felt uneasy.  Something wasn't right, aside from the obvious half the class was missing not right, there was something else niggling in the back of his mind that was giving him the sensation that what had transpired over the last hour and half was not fully explained by the clumsiness of the students.  Years of being a double agent had left him highly skilled in the unusual area of justified paranoia so he mentally filed the feeling for further analysis at a more convenient time.  Right now he had to find out why eight Slytherins had not bothered to materialise for his lesson.  Eying the walls of the passageway suspiciously as was his habit, he swept at pace towards the common room building himself into a fury.  

Blaise stepped into the passageway outside the potions laboratory and peered cautiously around the corner.  He exhaled noisily once he was satisfied that no-one was present.

"Malfoy, where are you?" he whispered urgently.

"Right here" came the drawl back, "oh sorry, couldn't you see me?  Wonder why?  Let's get back to the tower."

With that Draco moved up the corridor, sticking his arm out as he pushed past Blaise so that he could drag him along with him.  He felt Zabini's arm come up to break the contact but then drop away as the other boy realised that it would be the only way of knowing where the other was.  They proceeded warily, pausing at each turn to make sure that their House master had not stopped for any reason.

At the top of the tower Augusta Sinistra was receiving a worrying report from Helga Sprout.  The rather disconcerting flickering image of Helga's head was in the process of launching into a fully fledged diatribe on the impertinence of the new first year Slytherins.  Sighing, Augusta tried to get a word in edgewise to find the root of the obviously irritated Herbology Professor.

"… absolutely disgraceful.  In all my years of teaching I have never, and this is not mere exaggeration to emphasise my point, never have I been so disrespected by a set of students.  One bad egg I can understand, it's probably even healthy, but the whole lot of them?  Really, I do have to wonder what…"

What Professor Sprout was wondering about was not revealed as Augusta, tiring of not understanding what the problem was, chose to interrupt before more insults were heaped on her children.

"Helga, calm down, please!  What exactly occurred that has you riled so?  I assure you that any impudence will be dealt with most severely.  Were they not paying attention?  Chattering amongst themselves?  Do remember that it is only the first day of term and likely as not they're probably just a little over-excited.  That's no excuse I know, but"

"Chattering?  Not paying attention?"  Sprout's voice jumped a couple of octaves.  Augusta stepped back from the fireplace in alarm.  "I would hardly bother you over that!  They didn't show up Augusta!  Not one of them."

Although the expression on Sinistra's face had not changed, inside she was reeling with shock.  She certainly had not been expecting boycotts of lessons from the new pupils.  In the background she was dimly aware of Helga continuing her rant but she tuned it out as she considered whether it was truly likely that her first years would be so bold as to organise something so audacious.  Her sharp mind quickly reached the conclusion that it would be unlikely that an eleven year old would have the ability to convince let alone organise their classmates into such an action.  She straightened her back, turned her attention once more to the annoyed disembodied head of Sprout in her fireplace, informed her curtly that she could expect an apology in her next lesson, then exited swiftly from her room leaving Sprout feeling distinctly unsatisfied that she had not been allowed a free discourse.

As she hurried round the final twist that led to the Slytherin common room, Augusta was met by a rather peculiar sight.  Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts, and more importantly, Head of Slytherin House, was splayed flat out against the wall that contained the concealed entrance to the common room.  His large calloused hands were extended to their widest span and were stroking the stone and mortar surface, eyes closed in concentration.  Stranger yet was that he was speaking very seriously to Gregory Goyle, who was not, in fact present.

Augusta glanced all around her making quite certain that there was no hiding place in which Goyle could be ensconced.  Having satisfied herself that this was the case she was left with the disquieting notion that Snape had snapped and had lost the plot completely.  In her opinion, he had been skating on thin ice ever since Potter had joined the student body of Hogwarts.  It had been since then that he had become almost fanatical in his desires to see Slytherin beat Gryffindor to the extent that he had become blinded to the misbehaviour that he encouraged in his own charges.  And now he had seemingly decided that he wanted to 'become one' with the wall.

With some trepidation she approached him.

"Ah Professor Sinistra, I see you also have become aware that we have a slight situation in the tower.  Goyle, be so good as to repeat your information to the Professor."

'Well,' she thought, 'he's not lost his uncanny ability to see who's walking behind him even if he has gone gaga.'  As she searched for something soothing to say she was startled to hear Goyle's voice in front of her.  

"Well you see Professor, I was coming out of the common room when I heard this horrible wailing sound and so…"

And so Goyle launched eagerly into the modified tale of the morning's events that he had told Snape.  His boyish enthusiasm in the retelling masked his real stress at not having been able to break the enchantment and get a message through to the rest of the house about covering for Draco and Blaise.  Rather wistfully he had hoped that neither of his House tutors would notice until much later in the day that there was a problem which would at least have given him a better chance of figuring out what to do.  As it was, first Snape had surprised him be storming up to the common room entrance, and now Sinistra was here as well.  All in all, things were not looking good, and with those two around Draco and Blaise wouldn't be able to communicate with him to tell him what to do.

Augusta considered the information that Goyle had just reeled to her.  The more she considered it, the less informative it seemed, he did not know how he had become invisible and he did not know why he couldn't get back into the common room.  She dismissed his story out of hand about the wailing monster in the corridor, if that had truly been the case Dumbledore would have known and it would be unlikely that Goyle would survive such an encounter.  The most probable truth was that the boy was subject to some cruel prank, although this explanation wouldn't hold for the problems to do with entering the common room.  She racked her brains for some insight into why anyone would want to completely block the opening.  She groaned and put her hand to her head.

On hearing his deputy groan, Severus turned around.

"You have an idea of what's happened, Professor Sinistra?"

Somewhat impatiently he waited for her to answer as she nodded her head tiredly.

"Dumbledore must've known that this would be the result."

Snape narrowed his eyes as he fixed his gaze on the witch in front of him.  There was little love lost between the two of them.  In itself this was hardly surprising considering their natures and the House that they belonged to, they were not people who indulged in friendships easily.  With his ambiguous position regarding Voldemort very few people stayed in his presence long enough to get to know him.  Sinistra had worked with him as his deputy for over twelve years.  He knew that she coveted the role of Head of House, much as he coveted the role of DADA instructor.  Being Slytherin through and through she had said nothing of this to him openly, but had made sure early on that he knew that in her eyes he was skating on thin ice.  Their relationship was further complicated by their overlapping circles of associates and acquaintances making it impossible for him to determine whether she was truly loyal to Dumbledore or the Deatheaters.  In the last war she had remained neutral, only involving herself at Dumbledore's request on specific occasions, but she had refused to condemn either side and he knew that some of her contacts were dubious.  The comment she had just made was loaded with innuendo, he chose to ignore it for now and spoke carefully,

"I'm afraid that I'm not fully seeing the connection between the Headmaster and our current predicament."

Augusta let out an exasperated breath, for an intelligent man Snape could certainly be very obtuse.

"Obviously our little darlings have been engaging in some experimentation for the Towers Cup.  Predictably this has ended with these anomalous results."

Severus frowned as he thought this over.  It made sense, although it didn't account for Goyle's invisible beast claim, though he was inclined to think that perhaps that part of Goyle's story was more flimsy than the rest.  It also meant that the resolution of the situation had the potential to elude them for several hours.  

The bell signalling the commencement of the next lesson rang.  Snape cursed inwardly, he had a double session with the final year N.E.W.T.'s class.  Only just remembering that Goyle was present he moved down the corridor, robes billowing, telling the other two that he would return shortly.

Augusta watched his retreating form as it disappeared out of view and shook herself slightly as she set her mind to the task of gaining entrance into the common room and making Goyle visible again.  

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A/N:

I know I know, nothing much happens in this, but it had to be done, needed to lay foundations y'know?  The background stuff is important, it'll come into play further on in the story.

As ever, please R&R, I'll post more soon.


	8. Who's There?

Disclaimer:  I do not own Harry Potter.

Most animals when caught in headlights freeze.  It is said that the hypnotic quality of the brightness and intensity of the lights paralyses them when instinct would have them run.  We cannot see inside the minds of these creatures so we cannot know for sure, but in a dimly lit hallway in a magical school called Hogwarts, two boys were about to prove that, for humans, black too can be equally hypnotic.

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Draco and Blaise had little time to react as an irate Potions master raged down the corridor towards them at exceptional speed.  To turn and run would have caused far too much noise but to stay still ran the risk of being detected. Unable to utter a sound they stood rooted to the spot on one side of the passageway incapable of moving their feet staring with abject horror at the man who drew closer and closer.  They clutched each other's arms tightly and prayed to whatever Gods might be listening to send them a little luck.

As Snape stalked around the turn he barely felt the change in the movement of his robe as it caught the two petrified boys.  Perhaps he was too preoccupied with thinking of an appropriate task for his class that wouldn't require his supervision, whatever the reason, the shift was not noticed and he continued on his way unaware of their presence.  

It was quite some moments before Zabini and Malfoy had calmed down enough to realise that they were safe.    Blaise released Draco's arm abruptly, and turned his attention back to the other two Slytherins left in the area.  He tugged gently on Draco's robe and pulled him back a safe distance so that they could speak in low whispers without being heard.

Goyle looked at his house mistress's form.  Augusta Sinistra was staring intently at the door, lips pursed and a small frown of concentration creasing her brow.  He wasn't sure for certain but he thought that she had forgotten about him, he began to back away from her slowly, intent on making as little noise as possible when suddenly she spoke,

"Mr Goyle I want you to think hard and tell me exactly which of your housemates were standing by the doorway as you left."

Goyle scrunched up his face in his effort to recall what he had seen as he had hurried out into the corridor.

"Errr, there was a group of first years, the boys mostly.  They were crowded round, um, I can't remember his name.  He's the one who's got a ridiculous number of older brothers.  The one with the huge family bit like the Weasleys."

Professor Sinistra straightened her shoulders and turned to where she presumed Goyle was and treated him to a cold glare.

"If you are referring to Mr DeVries I suggest you inform yourself better as to his background.  The DeVries are one of the oldest and most wealthy wizarding families in the world not to mention one of the most philanthropic.  They are not to be classed in the same league as the Weasleys."

Having reprimanded Goyle to her satisfaction she continued, "Now are you quite sure that it was DeVries that you saw?"

"Yes, oh and I think that the reason that everyone was around him was that he was about to show off some complicated charm."

In her head, Augusta silently berated the boy for not mentioning this sooner, then cursed a thousand times as she wondered what sort of locking charm the young DeVries had managed to find.  Having been good friends with the boy's mother she had known that the smallest of that particular dynasty was a bit of a bookworm with a penchant for obscure hexes.  Though considering that he had nine older brothers to contend with that was probably due more for a need to survive than a true calling into the ancient arts of hexing.  Sadly all this meant that it was unlikely that he had formed his idea from the standard texts available to a first year, which in turn meant a headache for her to find its counter.  The answer had to lie in a book somewhere, in a second she had made her decision.  Hastily she conjured a scrap of parchment and a quill and scribbled a note which she held out in front of her.

"Goyle, take this and give it to Madam Pince, she will give you all the assistance you need.  Once she has found all the books I have requested, return here immediately."

Happy that he had an excuse to search out Blaise and Draco, Goyle fairly snatched the note from his Professor's hand and set off at pace towards the library.  He rounded the corner and had barely taken two steps when a hand was clamped over his mouth and he was dragged into a hidden alcove.  His struggle was cut short as an annoyed voice hissed,

"For Gods' sake Greggo, it's us."

The hand remained firmly clamped over his mouth for a few seconds longer as Blaise made sure that he wouldn't cry out.  Once satisfied that this was the case, he was released from the death hold he had been in and shoved forwards.

"Ow!" Goyle said none too quietly, rubbing his arms, though all that could be seen by the other two was a scrap of paper fluttering vigorously in the air.  "Did you have to be so rough?"

"Shut up you moron!" Draco whispered, "You might be invisible but you can still be heard.  Keep your voice down.  What's that in your hand?"

"Sinistra wants me to get books from the library.  I get to scare Madam Pince – cool huh?"

"Perfect, we'll come with you.  I take it that you didn't manage to get a message into the common about giving us an alibi."

If Gregory's face had been visible, they would have seen it fall.  As it was his silence told them all they needed to know.  They resumed his journey to the library.

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Madam Pince had her head resting in the palms of her hands and was massaging her temples with her fingertips.  Usually the library was not very busy during the day.  In fact even in the evenings and weekends it didn't fill up.  Students made full use of their privilege to take books back to their common room and study there, only a few books were restricted to library use only, and it was rare that a student would have cause or want to use those.  Today, however, was shaping up to be a very crowded day.  Almost all the sixth and seventh years that had free periods were present.  Had it been the Ravenclaws this would not be untoward, but the presence of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, with the exception of Hermione Granger, was unheard of.  

When the Towers Cup had been announced Madam Pince had barely registered it.  It seemed of little or no significance to her since officially she was neutral when it came to  the Houses.  Now, she could see that her daily routines would be disrupted for the foreseeable future.  Already she had had to deduct points from several pupils who had either been arguing over restricted texts or manhandling some of the more delicate manuscripts.  She had split up a group of chattering Hufflepuffs who were threatening to turn her peaceful study area into a noisy youth club and instead of doing the shelving as she would normally be doing at this calm time in the day she was forced to keep a beady eye out for further trouble.  

Mentally, she scolded Dumbledore for dropping another 'idea' on the staff without giving anyone time to come up with reasonable objections and viciously hoped that all his jelly beans would forever more be earwax flavour.  When she saw a scrap of parchment waving itself under her nose she cursed Dumbledore for driving her to insanity and closed her eyes, counting to ten, trying to bring herself back to reality.

The insistent rustle told her that the paper was still there and she opened her eyes and stared at it, peering over her steel rimmed half-moon spectacles suspiciously.  She noted that it had writing on it.  She entertained the thought that one of the numerous children was playing a trick on her and she looked around distrustfully.  All the students appeared engrossed in whatever it was they were doing.  Slowly she reached out her hand and took the note.  As she pulled it closer for inspection she recognised Professor Sinistra's handwriting.

In a low voice that was undetectable to the surrounding students she spoke,

"Mr Goyle, are you still here?"

Mindful that he was in the library and aware that Malfoy and Zabini did not want the rest of the school to know what had happened to the Slytherins, Goyle answered her in the same low tone, leaving the other students oblivious to his presence.  He followed the librarian as she went to a stack of shelves on one side of the main room, pausing as she bent to say something to Harry and Hermione who were sat on one of the far tables.

They had not been in the dusty shelves for more than five minutes when a resounding crash echoed through the section.  Madam Pince rushed out to find Harry Potter and Hermione Granger picking up some of the more ancient texts that had been piled up on their table.

"Mr Potter, Miss Granger!  What did you do?  I thought I made myself perfectly clear that those books were stacked too high."

"I.. I'm sorry Madam" stammered Hermione, "I just reached across to give something to Harry, I must've knocked them over, I thought I was being careful."

On a normal day, because it was Hermione Granger, Madam Pince would have let the girl off with a minor admonition, unfortunately for the Gryffindors the librarian was reaching the end of her tether. 

"Ten points from Gryffindor, I hope you will act on my warnings in the future."

The librarian stood with a disapproving look as she watched the two pick up the books and arrange them in a more sensible manner on the table.  Satisfied that they had done as asked this time, she resumed her search for Sinistra's books.  

Two minutes later her attention was caught by raised voices.  By the time she reached their source a scuffle had broken out between a group of Hufflepuffs and Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas.

"What is the meaning of this?"

She was met with a clamour of people each simultaneously trying to give their version of what happened.  Pinching the bridge of her nose she turned to Hannah Abbot, stopping everyone else so that she could make out what the girl was saying.

"Well, you see, I was sitting here minding my own business when Neville came up behind me and pulled my hair, not just a gentle tug mind, but a real hard pull.  Look my head's still sore from it" she bent her head forward and Madam Pince could see the redness on her scalp.  She looked over to Neville and raised her eyebrow indicating for him to have his say.

"Madam Pince, I swear, I didn't pull her hair." 

She narrowed her eyes and Neville met her gaze unflinchingly.  To all intents he seemed to be genuinely telling the truth, yet the marks on the girl also indicated that she wasn't lying either.

"Ten points from both Houses," she held her hands up as both the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs protested, "that's enough from all of you.  Neville, Dean, I'm not interested, keep away from the Hufflepuffs and you Hufflepuffs the same, keep away from Neville and Dean.  I will not tolerate this sort of behaviour in the library."

With that she stalked back to where Goyle was waiting patiently.  Barely a minute elapsed before another commotion had her running to the study area.  The sight she was met with was one which she had never seen in all her years at Hogwarts.  Alan Dirving, a seventh-year Ravenclaw, was sat looking disorientated, blood trickling from a wound in the corner of his forehead, two other Ravenclaws were tending to him.  His girlfriend Iona, another Ravenclaw but a year younger, was currently engaged in battering a boy about his head with a rather heavy herbology tome.  From the screeches of the enraged girl, Pince was able to make out that the boy she was assaulting had deliberately tripped up Alan.

Feeling her own temper snap, Madam Pince ordered the Ravenclaws on the scene to accompany Dirving to the infirmary, awarding five points for their healing charms but deducting thirty for Iona's behaviour.  Ushering them out of the library and shutting the doors to their protests she turned to deal with a mutinous looking James Brook.  Giving him no chance to defend himself she took twenty-five points and ordered him to the Hufflepuff common room after giving him a note to give to Professor Sprout.

Inwardly wondering what had gotten into the students she wearily made her way back to her book search; too busy bemoaning her day to note a soft chuckle escaping from the empty air.  Wearily settling down for the fourth time to locate the books Sinistra had requested she felt her muscles protest as she bent to look on the bottom shelf.

Having a more enjoyable time in his own search, Blaise Zabini was almost moved to hum in satisfaction.  Of course he would never be so uncool as to hum with happiness, but right now, amongst the books in the restricted section, he felt the most pleasant he had in a long while.  At the moment, he was feeling incredibly smug.  He had had a hunch about a way to communicate with the occupants of the common room and so far all the relevant texts were agreeing with him.  Pushing back the very small honest voice that piped up that this was only true because he had discarded as irrelevant all the essays that had disagreed with his theory, he pressed on with his search for the elusive Book of Death which contained the particular enchantment he was seeking.

Now, if you are unfamiliar with the magical world, you might think that a Book of Death was a tome which contained very nasty dark magic.  This, of course, serves to illustrate that you are not of a magical nature.  The Book of Death, well to be strictly accurate we should say the series of books known as the Books of Death, are in fact recorders of various innocuous charms, spells and potions which have caused, completely unexpectedly, either the caster or the recipient to die.  The only reason that the books were in the restricted section was that the powers that be at the school had realised that some students (various incarnations of the Weasleys and Malfoys sprung to mind) might draw on the descriptions and attempt to re-enact them as pranks.

Blaise was looking for book number five in the series.  As ever, Sod's law dictated that it was not where it should be.  He swept his keen eyes over the section finally noticing that a number of books had fallen down the back of the shelves, their titles obscured by the angle at which they lay.  Reaching in, attempting to remove them so that he could he see their spines he was hit by a sudden crack of blue light causing him to cry out.  Luckily for him, at the exact same moment, a great hullabaloo started up in the study area.

Madam Pince descended on the students in a foul mood.  For the first time in her life she was found herself in complete agreement with Severus Snape and wished that all the students were given a silencing draught as soon as they entered the school.  All around her children were speaking angrily at one another.  Hermione Granger was leaning against a table-leg trying to undo her shoelaces, which had been tied together.  Scattered around her were the old texts, some with loose pages hanging from them, which had been on the desk.  Her clothes were rumpled and it was clear that she must have stumbled.  Practically the rest of the library had congregated around and were heatedly attributing blame to one another.

Madam Pince had had enough.

"Out!" she roared, "I have had quite enough of this behaviour today.  Twenty points from all the houses here for such juvenile behaviour.  I do not wish to see any of you here, or in the nearby vicinity for the rest of the day! No arguments.  Get OUT!!!!" 

The last word she fairly bellowed and shocked everyone, and herself, with its force.  Meekly the students filed out of the library, not bothering to clear the tables, figuring accurately, that this would probably only further incense the fuming librarian.

Breathing deeply the librarian surveyed the study area.  Something had been not quite right for the previous half hour, but she couldn't for the life of her place what it was.  Remembering Goyle and her still incomplete task she tsked to herself and went back to where she had left him.  

Seeing the pile of books and realising that Goyle would have difficulty carrying them all in one go, she bade him take as many as he could and return for the remainder, by which time, she hoped, she would be able to complete the search.

As he opened the door to leave Gregory turned and said in an overly loud voice, "I'm just going Madam, I'll be back as soon as I can to collect the rest."

There was a brief pause before she heard the heavy door slam shut and then blissful silence.  Madam Pince exhaled a long breath, allowed her shoulders to relax, gave herself a moment of well deserved rest, before busying herself tidying the library.

Outside and out of earshot three boys dissolved into hysterics as Draco described the looks on the faces of his various victims.  Unseen to them, outside the Great Hall, the House Board shimmered and morphed to the colours of green and silver indicating that Slytherin had shot into the lead in the House competition.

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Author's Notes:

Hey all and any who are reading.  Bit of a longer chap, hence the delay in posting.  Am trying to make them shorter and post faster, but it just ain't happening at the mo'.  

As ever please read and review, let me know what you think.  Cheers m'dears!


	9. Patience is a Virtue

Disclaimer:  I do not own the books of Harry Potter – well I do, but only the objects not in a 'I wrote them' sense

Someone who was believed to be wise once said that patience was a virtue.  As with many pieces of wisdom it has been handed down through the ages and accepted as true without much examination.  Dear reader let me put you straight.  Patience is not a virtue, it is a skill; one that requires an immense amount of effort to perfect.  Although it is wrong to generalise a group of people on the basis of something as flimsy as the House they were sorted into, it is safe to say that for Slytherins, patience was a skill that they rarely bothered with.

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Augusta Sinistra's foot was tapping insistently of its own accord.  She was not even aware of its action.  Unfortunately her companion in the eerily deserted corridor was being made more than irritated by the movement.

Severus prided himself on his ability to concentrate in the most trying of situations.  Perhaps the strain of weekly Crucio sessions was beginning to tell, perhaps it was his frustration at not being able to reach his charges, whatever the reason, he was finding it nigh on impossible to block out the sound of the persistent hammering of Sinistra's high-heeled shoe on the smooth slate floor.  

Behind him Augusta was peering over his shoulder at the unmoving wall, tensing her hands open and shut as she waited for a solution to present itself.  Oblivious to her colleagues rising ire at her unconscious foot tapping she let out a sigh.  For Severus it was the straw that broke the camel's back.  He whirled round angrily.

"For God's sake woman can't you be quiet for a minute?" he demanded, "If you can't do anything more useful than stand and look over my shoulder I suggest that you leave!"

He caught the fleeting expression of shock, followed closely by one that he couldn't quite identify before Augusta schooled her face to its normal impassive tone.  He immediately chided himself internally, Augusta was one of the few faculty members of who's loyalties he was unsure, he did not need to create unnecessary animosity between them.  Before he could apologise Sinistra had turned and walked away from him.  Well, walked is no entirely accurate, had Augusta Sinistra been a child it would be appropriate to say that she flounced, however given her mature years we shall use the term 'stalked'.  Thus she didn't notice a rather large pile of books floating mid-air and approaching her on the exact same trajectory as the path she was taking.

There was a resounding crash, followed by loud expletives from both victims.  Snape, who had hurried down the corridor at the sound, bit his lip and failed to conceal his amusement at the scene in front of him; further raising Augusta's wrath.  Books were strewn haphazardly on the floor, some were suspended not far from the ground.  Severus supposed that these were resting on the unfortunate Goyle who was unable to move due to having to deal with Professor Sinistra's rage at being knocked over.  Leaving her to expel her anger on the boy, he bent gracefully to scoop up the texts closest to him, raising an eyebrow at some of the titles, these really were some of the most advanced theoretical guides that Hogwarts possessed.  He coughed quietly breaking his colleague's tirade.

"What?"  Severus flinched at the abrasiveness of her voice, realising that she was still upset both from colliding with Goyle and from his earlier harsh words.

"These books that Goyle has fetched from the Library," he paused here, trying to phrase his question in a manner least likely to cause offence, "they seem to be of a rather advanced nature.  It seems unlikely that the older students would have used these to experiment with, though I call them dunderheads, I do believe that they possess a small modicum of respect for the ancient spells.  They would not experiment in full view of their peers when they know the probability of unforeseen results will be clearly visible for all to see."

"Yes, I do agree with you Professor Snape," she replied, remembering to maintain formalities in front of Goyle, "unfortunately, from the tale Mr Goyle has recounted, I believe that the problem of entry into the common room may well be due to some grandstanding by young Mr DeVries."

Snape racked his brains for background information on Marmaduke DeVries, he remembered the boy's older brothers.  There were nine in total, keen minds as far as he could recall, somewhat arrogant, but this was only to be expected from boys of such an old and distinguished house.  Marmaduke was the youngest with eight years between him and the next youngest, it was common knowledge that he had been an accident.  His father had been somewhat disappointed that he had not been a girl and from what he understood from the boy's brothers he was the favourite of his mother and thus kept in order by his elder siblings.  

"I'm not sure I follow you."

With a pained sigh, Augusta filled him in on DeVries Jr's bookish habits.

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Author's Notes:

Hmmm, well… been on a bit of a break.  Back now, as you can see.  This was another background chapter.  More drama to come soon.  And yes, this time soon, does mean within the next couple of days, rather than the next month.  (It's a New Year's resolution, let's see how well I do…)

Happy New Year everyone!


	10. Deep Breaths

Disclaimer: Didn't write the Harry Potter books… big shock I know…

Oblivious that he was the topic of conversation for his House Masters, Marmaduke was trying to explain to the other Slytherins just what he had done to the door.  In the background, over his shoulder, he could hear people arguing over what had caused them to turn invisible.  The heat was obviously getting to people, some of the girls were fairly screeching at each other.  He himself was beginning to sweat profusely.  A knot began to tighten in his stomach.  

"Everyone shut up for a minute!"

To his surprise everyone did, startled by the ferocity of his voice.

"Okay, now please don't kill me or start to panic," as he uttered the last words he could feel the air in the room change from mild irritation to that of unease, "I think we might be in more trouble than you all realise."

At this Pansy interrupted him, "Believe me DeVries we are well aware of the trouble we're going to be in once we get out of here.  I'm going to have to explain to Snape just why I missed his lesson as is everyone else stuck here.  I can't believe you were so stupid!"

As Pansy drew breath to continue her rant Marmaduke quickly continued his speech, "Yes, well, that'll be a problem later.  But what I meant is that right now, I think we're running out of air."  The statement was met with deathly silence.  He supposed that was a good thing, at least no-one was wasting the remaining air in the room.  The next minute he found his feet swinging madly above the ground as he was lifted up from behind.

"What, precisely, do you mean by that?"

Stuttering somewhat, as he struggled against his tormentor, Marmaduke hastily explained, "You see, this wasn't a simple locking spell.  It's one that was used to defend castles against attack.  It completely seals the area.  It's an unbreakable barrier, nothing gets in or out."

"And this includes AIR???" several voices chimed with disbelief.

Marmaduke nodded sadly, then realized that he couldn't be seen, "Yes, I think so."  He was dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

"Let me guess," a sarcastic voice called out, "this spell you used, isn't related to the any of the common or garden variety of defensive spells that we might come across in our textbooks."  The voice didn't even give him a chance to answer, "Brilliant, bloody brilliant.  Trying to find a counter 'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Deciding that there was a danger that the situation could get out of control Pansy moved to impose her authority, "Shut up everyone!  We need to conserve the air, so no talking unless strictly necessary, which means no talking.  We need to reverse the spell so we're going to take it in turns to have a go.  Those of you who think they might have an idea on what to do; line up to the left of the door.  Place your hand out in front of you so that you know you're not at the front.  Once you get to the front try out whatever you think might work.  Everyone pay attention and try and use other people's ideas to build on.  Right, get to it.  We'll worry about the invisibility once we get the barrier down."

There was very little mumbling as people lined up, the gravity of their predicament had sunk in and in a manner that would have surprised the children of the other Houses, the Slytherins set themselves determinedly to their task.

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Two floors beneath them two of their housemates were sat on the floor poring over the contents of the fifth Book of Death.  

"Here it is, I remember one of my cousins telling us about this augmentation spell that caused someone's head to explode!"  Blaise's childish enthusiasm would have been sweet were it not for the rather grotesque subject matter.  Next to him Draco shot him a look of distaste, rolling his eyes as he remembered that he couldn't be seen.

"Whilst I applaud your family's love for all things gory, how does this help us?"

"Oh, don't be sick!  I wasn't suggesting exploding someone's head you eejit.  That was just a freak result from a miscast of the spell.  See, what's s'pposed to happen is that the caster's thoughts are augmented and can be focused into someone else's mind."

That was, Draco thought, rather cool.  He was impressed with Blaise for remembering where to find the spell and thinking of its use now.  Of course he wasn't about to let Blaise know this so he merely said, "Right then, let's give it a go."

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Rosie

Rose Parkinson, Pansy's little sister, sat bolt upright upsetting the person next to her.

"Did you hear that?" she asked of no-one in particular.

"What?"

Rose, it's me.

"That!"  Rose was starting to feel a bit alarmed.  "That voice saying my name.  You heard it right?"

They can't hear me Rose, I'm in your head.

Rose by now was more than a little flustered, twisting and turning her head around to try and locate the voice.  Unaware of her reaction, Draco continued to speak to her.

I need you to tell everyone that when they get out they need to say that I was in the common room with you guys.

"Can't hear anything, you must've imagined it"

Panic did not come close to describe the emotions running through Rose's slight frame.  She began to hyperventilate attracting the attention of her sister.

"What's up?"

Did you get that Rosie?  You need to get everyone to get their stories straight.  Everyone has to say that me and Zabini were with you guys the whole time.  OK?  Dammit Zabini, there's no way of knowing that she's getting this.

"Draco?  There's a voice in my head, I think it's Draco."  

Pansy carefully regarded the space where she deduced her sister was sitting.  Her baby sister was a pain more often than not, but she didn't usually tell lies to get attention, nor was she likely to crack in stressful situations.

"Alright, I'll play along, what did he say?"

"Well, he said that everyone has to say that he and Blaise have been in here the whole time.  That's it really, he didn't say why or anything."

Pansy considered for a moment.  Her sister didn't sound crazy, and it made sense that Draco and Blaise might have done something that would require an alibi, especially if they were invisible. She raised her voice and addressed the room,

"OK everyone, listen up.  When we get out of here if anyone asks you're to say that Malfoy and Zabini were with us the whole time.  This is not up for discussion and remember we're running low on air so don't waste it gossiping!"

Pansy wiped the back of her hand across her brow.  It was getting progressively hotter.  She was sure that that was not a good sign.  Some of the others had conjured little fans to keep cool, but though they gave comfort from the heat all they did was push the air around the room.  Not being an expert or having much experience in such situations she knew that they were probably safe for the time-being, but with over thirty people and no fresh air supply the situation was definitely not good.

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A/N:  See, told you this would go up fast.  Seems like following a bout of writer's block you get blessed with an insane period of energy.  

As ever let me know what you think, and that you are still reading.


	11. Open Sesame

Disclaimer:  Sooo not mine.

Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson were leaning, back to back, against each other.  Like the other students sat in the room they said nothing to each other.  For a place packed with children, it was eerily silent.  The monotonous sound of spells being repeatedly cast had ceased over fifteen minutes ago.  They were out of ideas and rapidly becoming disheartened.  Unbeknown to both girls, they were thinking the exact same thought.  Namely, that the present situation wouldn't have been as bad had the two dominant males of the House been present.  At least the huffing and silent posturing would've been amusing to watch.  And further distraction could have been gained by seeing which boy could go the longest without breaking the silence.  At least, they thought thankfully, no-one was crying.

************************************************************************  

Outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Professor Severus Snape was feeling like weeping.  Not in some pathetic girly way of course, but rather a manly, I've had a trying last few weeks and this really isn't helping, kind of way.  It didn't help that Augusta Sinistra's eyes seemed to be fixed on him constantly, as if watching for some evidence of weakness.  He only just managed to contain a tired sigh that threatened to escape his lips.

"Anything?" his question hung between them for a moment.

Augusta drew herself from her thoughts and glanced down at the charm incantation in front of her.  It was useless, everything that she had looked at had been useless, "Nothing."

She heard fingers drumming restlessly against the hard, stone floor.  She had almost forgotten about Goyle.  He had been sat there idle, while she and Severus had looked through the books.  It had been the first sound that he had made since he had come back from the library.  She was mildly impressed, it had been close to an hour since he had returned, she wouldn't have thought it possible for him to keep silent this long.  

"Mr Goyle, since you have nothing else to do, please return to Madam Pince and retrieve the remaining books I requested."

A frantic scrambling of feet was heard, then faded away.  Apparently, Gregory was more than happy to leave their presence.

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Elsewhere in the castle and in the grounds Professors Flitwick and Sprout were becoming increasingly exasperated with the whispers going around their classes.  Helga Sprout was particularly displeased as the main culprits in her case were her own Hufflepuff NEWT students.  Not only were they not paying attention to her lecture on the current method of repotting one-year old Thunderdils, they were also throwing poor Neville Longbottom death glares every chance they got.  Although, it has to be said, Neville was shooting daggers right back at them.

Professor Flitwick was facing an analogous problem with his sixth year Ravenclaws.  To be more precise, he was being irritated to no end by Iona Stevens and her select coterie of friends.  They were all listening to Iona whispering furiously about something or other and making indignant noises at appropriate intervals.  In his many years of teaching Flitwick had acquired a reputation of 'softness' amongst pupils and faculty members alike, though he preferred the term 'leniency'.  He had turned a blind eye and ear to the disruption at first, but given its persistence, he felt that he was perfectly entitled to reprimand them. He cleared his throat and waited.  After a minute or so he tried again,

"Ahem, ladies?" again he failed to capture their attention.  He spoke once more, louder than before, "Miss Stevens, et al?  Might I remind you that you are currently in my lesson and not on your own free time.  Please postpone your discussion until after this period.  Two points from Ravenclaw."  There, he thought, that should do it.

Unfortunately, one of the troubles that arise when you have an easy-going reputation is that you can shock people when you finally do attempt to be firm.  For Iona the further loss of two house points, which admittedly was nothing compared to the thirty she had lost from Madam Pince in the library, was the final straw.  She burst into tears and stormed out of the classroom to the girls toilets, followed hastily by her best friend.  It sealed her decision to extract revenge on James Brook, whom she was blaming for everything that was going wrong for her today.

Professor Flitwick sagged wearily on his high stool.  This was precisely why he didn't like to enforce discipline too strictly… it always seemed to result in tears.  He looked at his class who seemed as confused as he was as to what to do next and came to the conclusion that the best course of action was to act as if nothing had happened.  Of course, the rest of the class spent the next couple of minutes paying attention to him before bursting into conversation to puzzle out what was going on.  Flitwick breathed deeply trying not to become disheartened at the fact that yet again events had conspired to prevent him from getting his class to pay attention. 

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Gregory Goyle was running for his life.  And he was very out of breath.  His wheezing and spluttering had become so pronounced that Snape and Sinistra had heard his approach a full minute before he had come into view.  Well, that is to say, before the books he was carrying had come into view.  He collapsed in front of them gasping.  Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Mr Goyle, whilst your eagerness to deliver these books to us is commendable, you hardly needed to run all the way here!"

"Air!" choked out Gregory, "Air!!"

Rolling her eyes at her colleague Sinistra stepped in, "That's quite alright Gregory, you just sit there and take your time and catch your breath."  She moved to pat him on the shoulder, then stopped realizing that she didn't know exactly where his shoulder was.

"No time!  Air!" his breath caught in his throat causing him to cough violently, making him dizzy and nauseous.  He tried to calm himself and spoke again haltingly, "Air.  No. Air.  In.  Den."

Seeing that his tutors weren't paying him any attention, he struggled to form a coherent sentence, "Professors!  There's no.  Fresh air in the room.  Sir!"  with this he grabbed Snape's cloak causing him to look at him, "Professor Snape, sir, I think that the spell might've stopped air getting into the common room.  They might be running out of air to breathe sir!"

That certainly got the attention of the two people in front of him.  He saw Sinistra begin to dismiss his statement and then watched as her eyes grew wide as she realized that he had a point.  Snape made no visible reaction at first, then gripped one of the texts tightly as he said "Well surmised Mr Goyle.  I now see you were justified in your speed at reaching us."

It was as glowing a compliment as Goyle had ever received from his Professor and his chest swelled considerably in response.  As his heartbeat slowed to a more normal pace he observed the increased speed that the two teachers adopted when scanning the books.

Further down the corridor Draco and Blaise digested what they had just heard.  The situation had turned from humorous to deadly serious and the most frustrating thing was their inability to lend a hand.  All they could do was watch and wait.

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The quietness of the Den was shattered by a long, loud, unmistakable snore.  People stirred slightly to try and locate the offender then settled back down as they remembered that they couldn't see anyone else.  It was somehow strangely comforting that, in a time of crisis, people could still fall asleep.  Another snore was emitted.

Against the section of wall where the door normally was Marmaduke rested his damp forehead trying to absorb some of its coolness.  Once more he chided himself for getting everyone stuck in this situation.  He softly butted his head on the stone, over and over trying to will a solution to enter his brain.

Later he would claim that it was the lack of oxygen that caused his addled mind not to register that the hard smooth surface he had been head-butting had suddenly transformed into a slightly warm, soft, springy surface.  In fact, it was not until he had been gripped tightly around his shoulders and given a short but firm shake that he realized that the barrier was no longer in place.  

Still held firmly, he was marched into the centre of the room by Professor Snape followed closely by Professor Sinistra.  He became aware that they were speaking and battled to listen to them through the wave of relief that had washed over him.  The room that had filled with the buzz of expectancy had fallen silent and he realised that the Professors had asked who was responsible for the whole mess.  

He didn't remember speaking up but he must have done so as a new barrage of questions were directed straight at him.  Dimly he realised that his tutors were also holding him responsible for the present state of invisibility of everyone and felt put out that he was having to take the fall for that too.

"What do you mean the invisibility isn't down to you?" Snape said sharply.

'Dumbledore's Knickers!' was the first thought that shot through DeVries' mind, he really needed to regain control of what his mouth was saying, he pulled himself together, "Exactly that sir.  The spell I cast had no element of disguise in it; no-one should've turned invisible from it."

"Well?" Snape whirled round and swept his gaze across the full expanse of the common room.  "Who else has been proving themselves incredibly inept today?"  The look in his eyes showed that he would not accept a less than truthful answer.

"It was me."  An annoyed female voice replied, moving so that she was stood in front of him.

Blaise and Draco casually wandered in at this point, lurking at the fringes of the crowd that had gathered around the professors.  'So,' thought Draco as Rose Parkinson explained to a rather unsympathetic audience exactly what she had done, 'little Rosie proves yet again her penchant for mischief.'  He perched on the back of a sofa and waited for the Professors to reverse the spell.

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As the student body filed into the Great Hall for lunch almost all the students noticed with dismay that, with the exception of Slytherin, all the Houses were in negative points.  It was also a matter that was the subject of discussion at the High Table.  Normally, this state of affairs was due to Severus being in a particularly foul mood and so would not have concerned the rest of the faculty; however, that the majority of the point deductions originated from Madam Pince was sensational news.  Especially as she refused to discuss the matter with the rest of the staff and was sat looking like an exploding volcano was definitely something to gossip about.

The Slytherins came in en masse led by their house tutors.  Most of them hadn't even registered the points situation as they were gloomily figuring out how best to apologise to the Professors whose classes they had missed.  Snape had decided that although he was going to explain to each Professor what had happened, it was appropriate that each student should also make the appropriate apology in order to prevent points being taken, with Marmaduke having to apologise to all the Professors whose classes had been disrupted.

Malfoy was feeling cock-a-whoop about the whole affair, more so as he saw the obvious discord on all the other tables.  Smirking he let his eyes rest for a minute on the Gryffindor table, connecting for just the briefest of time with Harry Potter's before continuing his scan.

"That ferret!  I bet it's all down to him!"

Hermione crinkled her nose in confusion, looked at Harry and followed his gaze before staring back at him pointedly.

"Don't look at me like that Hermione, I know he had a hand in all this."

"But Harry, he wasn't even there.  None of the Slytherins were."

"My point exactly.  All the more reason to suspect them!"

"Honestly!" she rolled her eyes and turned her back on him to talk to Neville.

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Author's Notes:

Hee hee… the trouble's only just beginning, expect lots of fireworks and downright meanness.  Rubs hands together evilly

Now I'm going to make a little confession… I was getting a little disheartened by the lack of response to this story, as well, it's my first one and I really like it, and I'd almost got to the stage of throwing in the towel with it but a nice person set me an awfully lovely encouraging email so I'm going to continue with it for a bit longer and see what the continuing response is.

In that vein therefore, please review, comment, even flame me!!!  Go on, you know you want to!  All feedback is good, although of course happy feedback is the best.


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